WP #3 Rough Draft

[Sun Devil Entrance Video, first 30 seconds]

Sun Devil Stadium, the original home of the famous annual Tostidos Fiesta Bowl, host of the 1996 Super Bowl, and house of the Pac 12 championship team since 1958, holds 75,000 roaring fans and functions as an extremely important landmark on the Arizona State University campus today.

Senior Associate of the Sun Devil stadium, Don Bocchi explains [interview recording] “I must have been in forty stadiums across the country. There is no setting nicer than this one”.

Described as being literally “carved into the desert”, the Sun Devil Stadium not only makes an ostentatious visual statement, as it emerges from between two mountain buttes, but also serves as one of the “best college football facilities in the country” based on its field safety and athlete facilities, progressive renovations, spectator environments and seating options, etc.

“The quality of just the field and the maintenance that goes into it; our entire crew, including our students, take pride in the field and want it to be the very best” says Brian Johnson, the Manager of the Athletic Grounds Facilities.

A complete field playing surface renovation was launched in the fall of 1992 right before Arizona State hosted Washington for the season-opener. The new stadium addition accomplished four goals that contributed widely to the safety of the players and provided fans with a more interactive experience.

The newly refurbished Sun Devil Stadium presented the Sun Devils with a more durable playing surface, provided better sight lines in the lower seating levels for loyal fans,  an expanded sideline area for better player safety, and finally, it provided advantages to game day television and print photographers. [Touchdown announcement sound]

The dramatic proximity of every seat to the playing field is another feature that has made Sun Devil Stadium one of the nation's finest college football arenas [crowd cheering noise].

The Sun Devil Stadium not only executes high rankings, it also presents a rich history in both athletics and culture.  Sun Devil Stadium was one of the stops on Pope John Paul II’s 1987 trip to the U.S. , where he spoke to an above-capacity crowd of 75,000 as part of his rare and scarce  tour throughout the country.

He held Mass for 75,000 at Sun Devil Stadium and as Don Bocchi remembers: “All the Sun Devil logos and words with "devil" painted on the stadium's facade had to be covered up for the Pope to agree to enter the stadium”.

Among the hundreds of concerts, one of the greatest rock bands of all time, The Rolling Stones,  played a show at Sun Devil Stadium as part of its 1981 tour, which was filmed and released on video, “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” in 1983. [Have piece of song playing throughout that line].

[Commencement speech intro] In the most recent historical production, President Barack Obama delivered the ASU commencement address at the stadium on May 13, 2009 before a crowd of 70,000 including 9,000 graduates, the largest U.S. audience for Obama since his inauguration.

Finally, though our Sun Devil Stadium, the Home of Sparky and commemorated Frank Kush field, plays a key role in the rich history of Arizona State and the largest university in the nation as a whole, it plays its most major and crucial role in the athletic culture of this community. The Home of Sparky has an abundant influence on not only our own ASU family and our athletes, [start NFL audio] but also the surrounding community, the Pac-12 university conference, and even the National Football League, or as you probably know, the NFL.

Most importantly, the Sun Devil Stadium is important to the ASU community [start crowd cheering] and the athletes which participate and utilize the field accordingly. The stadium allows for the entire university to gather together with a common goal, leading to a multitude of connections and a sense of community, friendship, and pride, which ultimately strengthens the university as a whole. [End crowd cheering].

Though it is strongly debated today, sports play a crucial role in society in various ways, including the sense of community mentioned earlier, the promotion of health and well-being, learning about crucial social skills like development and commitment, and “understanding of service and personal responsibility” as mentioned in an article posted by USA Today, all of which are extremely beneficial throughout the rest of our lives in the real world.

[descriptive audio from 50 year celebration] The athletics at Arizona State provide great entertainment, develops loyalty to schools, community togetherness, and has itself an important educational role for team members that lasts a lifetime, as ASU alumni James Harden explains about coming back to watch football at Sun Devil Stadium “ This is my home. A lot of great memories here of coaches and fans, just everybody” [maybe insert interviewer also?]

[closing sun devil stadium announcement].